Hi Guys!

Today I’m gonna discuss the current state of standard, focusing on one aspect that particularly interests me. Before Born of the Gods was printed, it was all about basic lands. For the first time in years we had five top level mono-color decks. Tier 1 Mono-Blue and Mono-Black, Mono-Red and Mono-White (with a little splash) were also valid options and you could even play Mono-Green devotion expecting to win occasionally. There were of course multicolor decks, like UW control or RG monsters, but they were running between 10 and 12 basics. If Blood Moon was legal in the Theros standard I bet it wouldn’t be that popular. Then all of a sudden something changed. While Born of the Gods didn’t offer that much in terms of power cards, it surely did in terms of mana fixing. The new allied colors’ dual lands offer not just the super good scry ability but they also allow splashing a second color, bringing the dual count up to twelve if needed.

Let’s now take a look at how the splash modifies the metagame. I’m not saying that older versions are no longer competitive, I just want to show how new approaches work. This is a straight Mono-Blue list, not much different from the one our teammate Jeremy Dezani used to take home the trophy of PT Theros:

Nathan Holiday’s Mono-Blue Devotion
Standard – Grand Prix Phoenix 2014

Creatures

4 Cloudfin Raptor
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Master of Waves
4 Judge’s Familiar
4 Nightveil Specter
4 Thassa, God of the Sea

Spells

2 Bident of Thassa
1 Cyclonic Rift
3 Rapid Hybridization
1 Domestication

Lands

20 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nix

Sideboard

1 Cyclonic Rift
2 Dispel
2 Dissolve
1 Domestication
3 Gainsay
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Jace, Memory Adept
2 Negate
1 Rapid Hybridization

 

With Temple of Enlightenment being legal, many players came up with the idea of splashing with it to add cards like Detention Sphere, Last Breath or Glare of Heresy to solve some problems the deck was facing. This is Gary Wong’s version:

Gary Wong Uw Devotion
Standard – Grand Prix Phoenix 2014

Creatures

4 Cloudfin Raptor
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Master of Waves
4 Judge’s Familiar
4 Nightveil Specter
4 Thassa, God of the Sea

Spells

2 Bident of Thassa
4 Detention Sphere
1 Rapid Hybridization
1 Jace, Architect of Thought

Lands

11 Island
4 Mutavault
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Temple of Enlightment
1 Godless Shrine

Sideboard

1 Aetherling
1 Dispel
1 Dissolve
2 Domestication
3 Gainsay
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Glare of Heresy
2 Negate
1 Rapid Hybridization
1 Ratchet Bomb

 

A side note: Godless Shrine is basically a Plains that allows you to cast Nightveil Specter. As you can see, the creature package is exactly the same. Detention Sphere can of course deal with a lot of Mono-Blue’s enemies, from Pack Rat to planeswalkers and gods. If you ask me I wouldn’t splash it though because I think Mono-Blue can’t afford to play too many tapped/non-Blue lands, and if Mono-Blue loses its ability to curve out using all of its mana on every turn it is losing too much power.

This is a straight Mono-Black:

Yuuya Watanabe
Grand Prix Beijing 2014 – Winner

Creatures

4 Desecration Demon
4 Pack Rat
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
4 Lifebane Zombie

Spells

1 Bile Blight
4 Devour Flash
1 Duress
4 Hero’s Downfall
4 Thoughtseize
1 Ultimate Price
4 Underworld Connections

Lands

19 Swamp
4 Mutavault
1 Temple of Deceit
1 Temple of Silence

Sideboard

1 Bile Blight
3 Doom Blade
3 Duress
2 Erebos, God of the Dead
2 Read the Bones
4 Staff of the Death Magus

 

And this is how Eric Froelich revolutionized it, bringing his interesting version to the Top 8 at GP Phoenix:

Eric Froelich
Grand Prix Phoenix 2014 – Top 8

Creatures

4 Desecration Demon
4 Pack Rat
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
3 Lifebane Zombie
1 Erebos, God of the Dead

Spells

2 Bile Blight
4 Devour Flash
1 Whip of Erebos
4 Hero’s Downfall
4 Thoughtseize
4 Underworld Connections

Lands

13 Swamp
4 Mutavault
4 Temple of Malice
4 Blood Crypt

Sideboard

1 Lifebane Zombie
2 Doom Blade
4 Duress
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
3 Rakdos’s Return
4 Pharika’s Cure

 

The Red splash allowed Froelich to bring in Rakdos’s Return, a real bane of every control deck out there that wants to tap out at some point to play Supreme Verdict or resolve a planeswalker. Rakdos’s Return can blow away his hand and destroy his planeswalker too at the same time… good deal! I like the splash here because Mono-Black has no obligation of a fast clock and in my humble opinion is more well- prepared for the mid-late game than Mono-Blue.

RG monsters adopted a splash too, to abuse the power of the aforementioned Rakdos’s Return and Dreadbore

Philippe Monlevade – Jund Monsters
Grand Prix Buenos Aires 2014 – Winner

Creatures

4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Elvish Mystic
1 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Polukranos, World Eater
2 Reaper of the Wilds
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Sylvan Cariatid
1 Xenagos, God of Revels

Spells

2 Dreadbore
2 Mizzium Mortars
4 Domri Rade
1 Vraska the Unseen
3 Xenagos, the Reveler

Lands

5 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Blood Crypt
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Stomping Ground

Sideboard

1 Bow of Nylea
1 Doom Blade
2 Golgari Charm
3 Mistcutter Hydra
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Rakdos’s Return
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1 Sire of Insanity
2 Ultimate Price

 

I’m not quite sure if I like the splash here. I mean, it obviously looks sweet but I don’t think GR monsters used to have problems against control to justify the Black splash for these cards, and I think 12 shocklands is probably too much to stand against aggro decks pressure. I like the deck overall and I’d give it a try to see if I want to play a GR or Jund approach in the future.

All these changes had consequences: a lot of UW players went back to Esper, Mono-Black players kept switching between Nightveil Specter and Lifebane Zombie week after week, and more tapped lands in the format mean decks are slower, which may lead to the rising of a new fast aggro deck to punish them. This all makes for a very intriguing format, one that was considered “established” about a month ago, and I look forward to playing and enjoying it.

Hope you liked my article. See you next time.

Alessandro “The Pirate” Lippi